


this same rain that draws you near me

by thesmallbee



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: (very light on the hurt this is just fluff and comfort), Cuddling, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Storms, blink-and-you-miss-it implied sorikai, storms as an accidental metaphor for trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:46:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28912551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesmallbee/pseuds/thesmallbee
Summary: “You remember the night I opened the door?” he asked her, not sure if he was even expecting an answer. His thumb sweeped over the expanse of her shoulder blade as he reached the top of her spine again.“Mm... Rain sounded the same,” Kairi mumbled back, and he could feel the shape of her lips on his neck where she’d buried her face.
Relationships: Kairi/Riku (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 15





	this same rain that draws you near me

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this instead of sleeping for the last two nights, somebody please come kick my ass. i am admittedly a sad and touch-starved one-trick pony and rikai sleepy cuddling describes nearly every single one of my wips. 
> 
> title comes from vienna teng’s beautiful [lullaby for a stormy night](https://www.rainymood.com/watch?v=Dslen0lIUYA/). it doesn’t actually fit this very well, but i had never heard it until yesterday for reasons entirely unrelated to writing this and it felt like fate.

It was a Saturday afternoon, during one of the rare summer rainstorms the island saw, and Kairi was sleeping in his arms. Actually sleeping, this time, fidgeting as she dreamed while quietly snoring, the weight of her body resting loosely against him. Riku leaned back further on the couch, taking her with him as he settled down and gently rearranging her limbs to be more comfortable, careful not to rouse her. Storms like this would always knock her out, the rhythmic drone of heavy raindrops on the window panes lulling her to sleep faster than anything else he knew of. Her chin dug into his collarbone as she rustled in response to the distant thunder, but his lips were at just the right height to press a soft, dry kiss to the side of her temple, silently soothing her. 

He traced down her spine with the tip of his middle finger, using the lightest pressure he could manage. If her shirt wasn’t in the way, he knew one of the vertebrae would stand out as he skimmed across it, slightly raised by smooth scar tissue from the thorny wound that ripped across her back. It had taken Riku _years_ to stop impulsively hoarding all the blame for everything that had happened, to stop attributing every hurt and every loss and every scar to one stupid, scared, selfish boy and a bad decision involving the keyhole leading to the heart of this very world, but sometimes he still caught himself tripping back into old habits. 

“You remember the night I opened the door?” he asked her, not sure if he was even expecting an answer. His thumb sweeped over the expanse of her shoulder blade as he reached the top of her spine again.

“Mm... Rain sounded the same,” Kairi mumbled back, and he could feel the shape of her lips on his neck where she’d buried her face. 

“You told me not to do it. I should’ve listened to you,” he said, shutting his eyes against the fresh tide of guilt that had already started to flood in up to his ankles. 

One of her hands moved to his chest, coming to press right over his heart, and Riku was sure she’d be able to feel the way it began to pound like the raindrops outside in response to the attention. Her fingers twitched, gripping the fabric of his shirt for a fraction of a second, and there was the silent kiss of her lashes on his skin as her eyes fluttered open. He swallowed around a lump in his throat and listened to her pensive hum. 

Kairi moved to sit up, but she didn’t go far, only enough to blink down at him. The grey light slitting through the blinds painted the room in washed-out stripes, and her blue eyes were dark and heavy and piercing. Her elbows rested on the couch on either side of his shoulders, bringing her so close that their noses touched. 

“Are you waiting for permission? You can stop carrying it all alone,” she told him, gentle and sincere, and Riku had always wondered what it was she was seeing when she looked at him like that. 

“It’s okay, you know, to let us forgive you,” she said before closing her eyes and the gap between them to kiss him. She smelled like sweet chapstick and her lips were warm and her hand held the back of his neck so softly. 

It wouldn’t be the last time one of them would need to remind him. Each time they did would make him breathe a little easier, for a while, but it came with a smaller guilt in its wake for burdening both her and Sora with having to reassure him. 

“You hear that?” she asked after she pulled away, tilting her head towards the rain-beaten windows. “It’ll run its course, it always does, and then we pick up the pieces. Together.”

“Right,” he whispered, voice hoarse. He didn’t trust himself to say any more yet without it breaking. Outside, the rumble of heavy storm clouds and pattering footfall of rain filled the comfortable silence that settled between them. 

“Sorry for waking you up,” he finally added, nuzzling into the palm of her hand when it crept around to cradle his cheek. 

“Do you remember how I got Axel to stop apologizing?” she said with a pout, flicking her thumb playfully over his nose. 

“I think it _may_ have involved Merlin needing to reset a broken nose and you’d just so happened to have figured out how strike raid works,” he teased back, narrowing his eyes before continuing, “am I supposed to take that as a threat, Kairi?” 

She smothered a giggle against his chest as she collapsed to rest all her weight against him, the pressure tugging any remaining tension out of his body. He wrapped both his arms around her small frame with a light squeeze and kissed the crown of her head, smiling into her hair. 

The rain had shown no sign of giving up. It would likely stall over the island for the rest of the day, but its presence didn’t bother him. He held Kairi close and let his eyes slip shut, content to wait it out with her.


End file.
